It's not nice to hate being a summer associate when some of your classmates would probably kill for your job.

Maybe not, although it certainly raises the question of why we're all here in the first place. At any rate, things have improved since I posted that, although I'm still just finding this tolerable rather than fun. And I'm certainly not complaining about having a job. BUT I still don't like feeling scrutinized all the time about stupid bull and I don't like hide-the-ball tactics. On the other hand, maybe things would be better if I were somewhere that had a better offer rate, but that's really my own fault for having *&^% the bed on the LSAT two years ago and not getting into a better school.

Weren't you public interest focused? It's stunning to see how some of the most self-righteous (I'm not saying you) are now all participating in interviews and hoping to work for firms.

I noticed a lot of that happening in my class during 2L and 3L OCI. A lot of the people that came in as die hard public interest 1L's changed their mind after a bunch of classes learning about all sorts of different areas of law for practice they didn't know about before. Also, some of them went for firm jobs because they couldn't get a public interest job and/or took a serious look at their student loans numbers. Even though the pay is low in comparison, public interest attorney jobs are very competitive to get.

It's not nice to hate being a summer associate when some of your classmates would probably kill for your job.

Maybe not, although it certainly raises the question of why we're all here in the first place. At any rate, things have improved since I posted that, although I'm still just finding this tolerable rather than fun. And I'm certainly not complaining about having a job. BUT I still don't like feeling scrutinized all the time about stupid bull and I don't like hide-the-ball tactics. On the other hand, maybe things would be better if I were somewhere that had a better offer rate, but that's really my own fault for having bunnies the bed on the LSAT two years ago and not getting into a better school.

Weren't you public interest focused? It's stunning to see how some of the most self-righteous (I'm not saying you) are now all participating in interviews and hoping to work for firms.

Well, not public interest in general, but indigent defense. And yeah, along the lines of what .Chuck said, what's really stunning is how much worse public interest hiring is right now than firm hiring. I interviewed with public interest places that came to OCI, debated whether my one firm offer over those that hadn't gotten back to me, and then took the offer that could lead to permanent employment. I'm glad I did, too, as I talked to one 3L this year who told me that she got hired at the ONE defender's office in the COUNTRY that was taking 3Ls (she could be wrong about this though, but it sounded bad out there for crim people). On top of all that, I am geographically limited by my SO which is just not an option if you're public interest-focused.

Anyway, I may be self-righteous, but I'm not f-ing stupid. Before I found out I'd gotten a transfer spot I contemplated not doing firm OCI interviews. But after talking to the attorneys at my PD internship last year about their hiring, or rather the lack thereof (and this wasn't some bad podunk office, either), I realized that would be unwise. Nevertheless, I'm applying for gov't jobs this fall although I doubt I'll get one because my background check will be lulzy for myriad reasons . And the attraction of clerking is that I may be able to eventually land a federal defender position, which also is, in part, the attraction of a firm job, since many fed. defender offices actually take a lot of people from firms.

Well I keep getting these "research this question to which there is no answer" assignments, which are nerve-wracking and time-consuming. Mostly I really don't like the social stuff, which I wouldn't care about, except that I am being evaluated on it.

I mean, imagine if you were forced to sit around with, like, hipsters all day and got evaluated on how not-awkwardly you interacted with them ... that's kind of like what it's like for me to try to not be awkward around people who mostly talk about TV shows and sports that I don't watch and know nothing about. It's not that there's anything WRONG with that, it's just that I have to constantly be putting in the effort socially and yet still look bad compared to my colleagues who can participate in these conversations in a meaningful way. To top it off I'm pretty antisocial anyway so trying to put myself out there is painful and takes a lot of calculation and effort. I actually prefer just doing my work in my office silently to talking to coworkers.

But yeah, again, these things would not seem like such a big deal if I were somewhere that had a ~100% offer rate. Without that, though, all this stupid *&^% really gets magnified. I'm sure you don't sit there and second-guess every conversation you have with someone, but I do because every time I feel like I could have been more "on" I have to wonder if that's what is going to get me cut from the class.

The money is indeed nice although I am too afraid to spend it because I fear these are the last paychecks I will ever get.